Citibank to close 13 Philly-area branches: report
As part of wider cost-cutting
Citibank to close 13 Philly-area branches: report
Joseph N. DiStefano
Citibank will cut 13 Pennsylvania branches as part of its ongoing cost reductions, which also include axing 5,000 I.T. people, Bloomberg reports here (search story for "Pennsylvania").
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. lists 21 Citi full-service branches in PA, all in the Philadelphia area. Citi recorded around $800 million in deposits at its Doylestown office, apparently its local office of record for corporate and branchless accounts; plus around $900 million at the other 20 branches combined, for a per-branch average of less than $50 million, small by big-bank standards.
The local offices, developed in Citi's effort to enter the Philadelphia and Boston markets in search of loan customers and cheap deposits starting in the mid-2000s, cost Citi around $3-4 million each. Some of the Boston-area branches are also slated to closed.
Comments (24)
In total, Citibank will cut 11,000 workers.— The Monk
The Obama all out assault on the financial sector continues in earnest & with great success. 4 more years and the entire sector will be nicely destroyed and hundreds of thousands of rank & file workers in the unemployment lines. Hope & change...4 more years!!!— kelprod2-freemarket- You mean the financial sector he single handedly saved from its own excesses (and if you saw, the Govt got a big profit from selling its AIG stake), only to be rewarded with more bonuses for the management and layoffs for the workers? Meanwhile, Bush presided over the destruction of that sector. You are a fool, kelp.— Palestra Jon
- @ Palestra - Kelprod is not entirely wrong. Since it was Bill Clinton who originated the Great Recession when he repealed all the banking regulations in 1999, Democrats have ownership of this one. Moreover, the Dodd Frank Act, which is complete and utter overkill, is having systemic negative effects on small and medium sized business.
All this was accomplished with the private Central Banks corrupt partnership with the Democratic Party. Just like the private Central Bank did during the 1920s, central bankers created an overinflated market by pouring massive amounts of cheap money into the market, only to then crash it when they began to raise interest rates and reduce purchasing of sovereign debt. They they central bankers have their elected puppets introduce expensive socialists programs convincing the naive public "they need them" meanwhile raising taxes and giving up unalienable rights.
This is also evident in Europe where with the crash, the EU will introduce the European Central Bank, now with its approvals, to create a super central bank which will govern all of Europe and not have to answer to any one country or elected government.
Its nice to be a central banker. You control all the money and don't have to report to anyone.
Amazing how ignorant the American public is.— Professor1982 - This is what happens when Banks overbuilt during the 2000s. Next to fall??? Pharmacies. They too are WAY overbuilt.— Professor1982
- @kelprod...: Funny how even the bank does NOT refer to govt intrusion. Only you who thinks Pres Harrison (republican) was a communist when he signed the Sherman Anti-trust into law.
>>>> This from CitiBank: in response to recent losses incurred by bad loans and toxic assets, it plans to reduce some of its operations, including limiting its branch network to only 6 major cities. The Bank plans on continuing operations in New York, Chicago, Washington, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles while reducing its presence in Boston, Philadelphia and Texas. ...
will eliminate some of its consumer products, targeting a more affluent customer base with credit cards and larger “jumbo” mortgage loans, in an attempt to focus on higher returns. ... The suburban banking model is not sufficiently profitable.
The bank also hopes to create a stronger online presence now that it has scaled back its traditional “brick and mortar” locations, attempting to compete with Bank of America and Chase for new customers in that market.
For CitiBank, it is about the freedom of the market that allows them to do this.
Now, in Greece CitiBank recently closed 40 branches because it was getting out of the "suburban" branch banking model. Why? Not profitable.
Please engage your brain before running your mouth.— nebulus - @ Nebulus - You are misinformed. Citi is pulling out of Greece as part of their clandestine efforts to mitigate their losses in a country that has NO MONEY left. Citi is a primary dealer and is making no money on sovereign debt brokering in the country which is where banks make their money along with loans.
Moreover, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was NOT communist, it was designed to prevent monopolies from becoming so powerful they could fix pricing and, as Rockefeller and Morgan did with the election of McKinley, threaten government with subversive efforts such as buying elections, intended unemployment, etc....
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was designed to keep a market diversified not concentrated with "To Big to Fail" companies.
Don't be a fool your whole life.— Professor1982 - @prof: I just write what CitiBank reports and what the WSJ confirms. The press release on Greece sites the same fundamental reason as the local branch closings here, lack of profitability. Which is true. Of course a public announcement is not clandestine especially when the reasons are accurate
Now, if you read my post then you would have noted that my comment about the Sherman antitrust act was directed at Kelprod2 who is an avid free marketer. (See @kelprod...:) My comment about why the branches were closing was to Kelprod2 as well.
But then you're not a fool and can read English. You too could stand to engage your brain before running your mouth.— nebulus - @Nebulus - Glad you believe everything to read and can plagerize at will.
True free market would have prevented the Great Recession. Problem is today, socialism is protecting the banking and poltical oligarchy at the expense of the middle class. Bailouts, Stimulus, etc... are nothing more than veneers to cover up the fact that the banking industry makes mad profits off of all the borrowing necessary to finance these programs.
So in short, the financial community, with the help of their puppet politicians, destroy the economy only to make mad profits off of rebuilding it.
Amazing how naive you are. Perhaps you should go re-read Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" or some of the writings of Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Jackson's war against the 2nd Bank of the United States and Nicholas Biddle's corrupt central bank.— Professor1982 - Is this really a bad thing? Less big banks sucking money out of the community is a good thing. Stick with a local credit union.— TheyCallMeBruce
- That's funny, Clinton left with a surplus and healthy economy. If Bush and the Republicans were so against big banks and greed, why didn't they stop/repeal? Ah, no way. Bush hyperinflated the destruction of this country with this two specific calls to increase home ownership, then to increase minority home ownership. The mortgage debacle that came after that was pure greed, purely inspired by a oil-rich, big business Bush. Facts.— MichaelZoe
- @Professor: see Glass-Steagall act (1933) and gramm-leach-bliley act of 1999. (WSJ writes that the CitiBank's [SEC] approved relationship with Smith Barney in 1998 predates Clinton's actions.
Regardless of the deregulation, the banking industries unethical and immoral and illegal activities belong to the bank. Clinton did not tell the banking execs to go out and [rob] everybody's grandmother. Which is exactly what they did.
CitiBank got $300 BILLION in bailouts under TARP in part because the bank had amassed over $3trillion in loans, $1.2 trillion were "off book entities" which obscured the size of the real deep hole CitiBank built for itself (clinton did not build that hole). Dodd-Frank raises the bar and somewhat restricts the more risky behaviors these banks engaged in and that got them and us in trouble.
@kelprod...: In a free market citibank should not have gotten any bailout and should have failed along with all the other institutions. Free Market = free rein and no rules.— nebulus - @Nebulus - Simply not true. The Deregulation of the financial sector by Clinton allowed the same failed policies to emerge which ultimately sunk the global banking Industry in 1929.
You're right Clinton's repealing of the 1933 Glass Stegal Act didn't stop greed, but it insulated taxpayers in that it kept, among other things, investment banks from investing toxic assists into insurance companies (See AIG) and retail deposit banks from investing their funds into toxic assets sold by investment banks, ect.
Clinton's repealing of the financial safeguards in 1999 removed ALL the firewall protections between these institutions, thus exposing the taxpayer to massive risk which ultimately came home to roast in 2007, just like it did in 1929.
In a true free market, NO BUSINESS which fails would be allowed to continue, their management unemployed NEVER to repeat their mistakes again.
Instead today, all the "To Big to Fail" companies are bailed out at taxpayer expense only to repeat their same mistakes (predatory or otherwise) in the future. This is a virtue of socialism which protects the banking and political oligarchy at the expense of the middle class.— Professor1982 - In the meantime, with all of you excoriating each other, they are closing my Media branch and moving my account to the Philadelphia branch- NOT. I going over to Wells Fargo.— andy
- face it boys and girls, the game is rigged and most of us are never going to get a seat at the table ...— Knucks
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Joseph N. DiStefano blogs about the latest news in the Philadelphia business community and elsewhere. Contact him at 215-854-5194.
Reach Joseph N. at JoeD@phillynews.com.
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